Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Transportation Robotics

Uber Eats Will Begin Using Nuro Delivery Robots (autoweek.com) 20

Autonomous tech developer Nuro is teaming up with Uber Eats in a long-awaited partnership that will see the company's latest robot take over the delivery of food to app users. Autoweek reports: The two companies signed a 10-year contract just a few days ago, paving the way for a wider rollout of Nuro's driverless delivery robots, which have been operating on a limited scale in several cities. The partnership will kick off slowly, with Nuro deploying its robots to Houston and Mountain View, California, as a start, before the service makes a wider debut in the Bay Area.

Perhaps more importantly, Nuro's delivery robots will allow Uber Eats to not have to pay a human driver, which is something that company has been working toward for years as part of its primary business as well. However, the lagging development of Level 4 and Level 5 autonomy, once widely expected to arrive around 2020, had stalled ambitions for Uber, which has struggled with profitability through normal operations with independent contractor drivers. Nuro delivery robots enjoyed renewed interest from business partners in the early months of the pandemic, but the company's technology is now being viewed as a cost saver for operators rather than a method of more sanitary delivery.

Of course, a limited rollout in two cities plus plans to launch in the Bay Area won't transform Uber Eats' business model overnight. This could take years even with an unlimited supply of Nuro delivery robots -- with regulatory approval still being the major impediment. That's because commercial driverless permits are granted on a state-by-state basis, in addition to city and county approvals, which were hard enough for Nuro to obtain in the Bay Area, where Level 4 robotaxis are being tested. Nuro will need to focus its efforts in those areas where traffic is suitable for its robots.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Uber Eats Will Begin Using Nuro Delivery Robots

Comments Filter:
  • Coincidence (Score:5, Informative)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Monday September 12, 2022 @07:53PM (#62876063)

    "Uber Eats Will Begin Using Nuro Delivery Robots "

    The local criminals will begin selling Nuro Delivery Robot parts.

    • Baltimore is alive with anticipation.

    • Not just criminals. These robots compete with cars &/or pedestrians & some people get somewhat annoyed by them. I can imagine delivery robot vandalism/"rage incidents" becoming a regular thing. Also, it doesn't take much to deliberately confuse today's robots & lead them astray.
      • Agreed, re: robot-rage incidents as these displace workers.

        Isaac Asimov predicted anti-robot violence all the way back in 1953's Caves Of Steel [wikipedia.org] where, among others, a robotic police assistant named "Sammy" was vandalized by discontented humans. Sammy in that novel is a crude caricature of a black servant, referred to as "boy" etc.

        The next step in his pseudo-history was to perfect humanoid-seeming robots (probably the inspiration for Cylons and the like).

  • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @08:14PM (#62876111)
    This robot had better bring the food to my door and ring the doorbell.
  • "Eat Recycled Food..." is now closer than ever.

  • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @08:51PM (#62876201) Journal
    I'd be interested to know if, and if so how much, Uber is actually saving vs. human drivers: even if robots capable of more or less doing the right thing without having to phone home for guidance all the time have gotten cheaper, this Nuro outfit has absolutely no incentive to pass any more of the savings on to Uber than the absolutely have to, whether because they have few other customers large enough to provide the demand they need or because they have competitors with functionally similar systems to worry about.

    Uber likes to make noise about how its profitability problems are just a byproduct of pesky humans who will be automated away Real Soon Now(tM); but, if anything, they are likely to find that their negotiating position vs. more or less fungible day laborers is vastly stronger than their position vs. outfits they are depending on for deeply nontrivial and/or patent-laden tech that they have largely failed to develop in house.

    Last I checked people with an app and some payment processing are rather more common than people with comparatively mature autonomous vehicles; it will be interesting to see if this is reflected in which partner ends up capturing most of the margins on a given delivery.
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      I'd be interested to know if, and if so how much, Uber is actually saving vs. human drivers:

      It's probably less about human drivers, and more about just getting deliveries done.

      Drivers are paid and tipped and many times drivers decline work because it pays too little to justify them making the trip. This results in customers who either don't get food at all, or it just gets cold until someone eventually comes around to get it, or it gets tossed in the trash.

      There are MANY examples of fast food joints like Mc

      • It's true that robots will take whatever job you tell them to; but I'm not sure that that aspect shakes up the economic question at work:

        It's certainly possible that the robots are just plain cheaper, in which case the floor for what qualifies as an excessively low bid will go down; but the same choice is at work: If you want reliable delivery the solution is simple enough, and looks essentially the same in humans or bots. Delivery isn't unreliable today because of some defect of human nature, it's unrel
  • I'd wager that if you place an order to be delivered by a robot you'll still be encouraged to leave a tip.
  • ...crappy urban planning. I suspect that delivery services are getting popular in the USA because they compensate for the inconvenience of having to drive so far to do so little.

    US cities & suburbs are so poorly planned that people have to drive several Kms just to go to a school, supermarket, convenience store, café, restaurant, etc.. With few exceptions, day to day stuff is infeasibly far to walk to on a regular basis & so Americans drive everywhere, all the time. Large percentages of land
    • I can understand your point of view, and in most big cities there are lots of place that everything is walkable, but a lot of our "ugly, unpleasant" places were designed specifically because we want space. I like living in a suburb where I do not hear what movie my neighbor is watching even if it is loud. I like being able to walk through my neighborhood and not have stores and restaurants everywhere, almost like living in a park that you have to take a bus to get to.
  • more reason to get out of the cities. totally unliveable.

My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells down by the seashore.

Working...